I would balance it such that it would be fun and useful, but not required, at the Flex raid, H scenarios and dungeons, and random battleground level of gameplay.

the problem with that, is that if the buffs arent substantial, you'll be asked to go dps right off the bat.

i do think it would make things a little more interesting to have a Support role, and a Control role in the mix...

Tanks could focus on taking the big hits, while Control help direct the enemies away from the squishy targets and onto the tanks while providing better dps than a tank would, but less than a dps would.

Supports provide healing and damage reduction, not as much as a healer, but help provide a baseline of incoming heals to lessen the spikes of incoming damage. (like shadowpriests of old).

While I can see progression heroic guilds tossing out the support & control roles in favor of pure dps/heal/tanks, I think more casual guilds would *love* to have a control in the group to be able to step in if a tank goes down and needs a brez, or gets otherwise incapacitated, etc. would give blizzard a little more flexibility to make fights a little more demanding on occasion without changing the amount of actual tanks needed.

Same with Supports, makes it a little less stressful on healers that are just dipping their toes in the water, but also lets a 'pro' support keep people alive, while dishing out a good deal of damage.

Their usefulness is more related to encounter design than anything else. Most classes have a measure of CC/snares available to them, but the fact of the matter is that by far most add mechanics in raids are either related to killing an add as quickly as possible, or just throttling DPS and using a tank to position it where it has to be killed. And those functions have been consolidated on tanks (because really, the second/third tank needs something to do and not every fight can be a tank swap). DPS players having the option to temporarily remove annoying enemies and so allow their group an easier fight would go a long way into making fights more interesting, IMO.

Part of the problem is that we're so focused on high DPS nowadays that no a lot of people want to sacrifice their top position in the meters to kite a few mobs around. I really enjoyed using Distracting Shot and kiting the Bloods on Deathbringer Saurfang on my Hunter in the few occasions I subbed in for my guild's Normal Raids. But I know I'm the minority here.

It's very comforting to know that regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion, profession, hobby or favorite dessert, every single human in the universe is still an individual with the potential to be a horrible person.

I seriously hope Blizzard stays away from rigid class roles of old. I don't want paladin healers (because it makes sense that the class in plate is in the back healing, amirite?).

However, I want them to go back to their roots with a slight modification in their class design philosophy to bring classes closer to the Rift system (not talking about the whole soul system; rather about the whole support role, which many think it's a gimped dps/tank/heal spec with buffs, which is not in Rift).

For example, when WoW was in development (I'm talking early development) paladins were supposed to be "secondary tanks (secondary as in "not as good as warrior tanks") with off-heals and heavy support spells designed to outlast opponents." This is fine and dandy, but when you anchor a class to such a rigid system, it's not fun. That's why WoW moved away from that, but instead made Ret paladins DPS powerhouses with little support or heals, Prot paladins tanking powerhouses with little support or heals, and Holy paladins healing powerhouses with little else.

So I'd like WoW to go back to said roots, and apply the Rift design a bit, so as to make the new paladin (for example and in comparison to early development WoW paladin) a "class able to take hits with capable heals and support spells, while being able to dish out decent damage" from "secondary tanks with off-heals and heavy support spells designed to outlast opponents."

The reason the trinity exists is because somebody has to walk up to enemies first and it is highly beneficial to keep those enemies close together or far-apart depending on what they can do. Therefore, the Tank exists.

The Tank will be taking more damage than anyone else and will not necessarily have time to keep threat and self-heal. Likewise, the next role (DPS) can't do their job efficiently if focusing on self-healing. A Healer exists out of necessity.

A DPS, or Damage Dealer, exists initially not because of needing to kill things quickly but because it's the default role in combat. "I want to make things die before I do." The DPS exists in all games with combat. Period.

A dedicated buffer is hard to separate from a healer as they serve the same function "make sure everyone else can do their job." A controller is similarly stuck between healer and tank. Not a single class does not have CC and having CC is nearly mandatory because of non-grouped questing and PVP.

The first three "make sense" and are "essentially." The others listed are not within the confines of the current system.

If you made a brand new game in which those roles are already built in, then that would work fine. In WoW, though, every, single, spec of every class would have to be gutted to give them a place to exist.

The reason the trinity exists is because somebody has to walk up to enemies first and it is highly beneficial to keep those enemies close together or far-apart depending on what they can do. Therefore, the Tank exists.

The Tank will be taking more damage than anyone else and will not necessarily have time to keep threat and self-heal. Likewise, the next role (DPS) can't do their job efficiently if focusing on self-healing. A Healer exists out of necessity.

A DPS, or Damage Dealer, exists initially not because of needing to kill things quickly but because it's the default role in combat. "I want to make things die before I do." The DPS exists in all games with combat. Period.

A dedicated buffer is hard to separate from a healer as they serve the same function "make sure everyone else can do their job." A controller is similarly stuck between healer and tank. Not a single class does not have CC and having CC is nearly mandatory because of non-grouped questing and PVP.

The first three "make sense" and are "essentially." The others listed are not within the confines of the current system.

If you made a brand new game in which those roles are already built in, then that would work fine. In WoW, though, every, single, spec of every class would have to be gutted to give them a place to exist.

Just pointing out nothing is really "essential". There are tons of one man army games.

Everything is designed the way it is for the sake of making things interesting.

Buffing (although personally I don't see the appeal of this role) and CCing can be made into effective roles if Blizzard wanted to.

Buffing can be made into a interesting "system" where there are different buffs for different situations and they have to be dynamically managed.

Your "everyone has CC" argument makes no sense. A CC class will have stronger CC necessary for group content compared to other classes. By your logic we won't need tanks either since everyone can tank to a degree.

It's not going to happen... The other two standard roles for MMOs are Buffer/Debuffer and Crowd Controller. WoW just isn't built that way.

In Everquest, for example, there are a ton of buffs and debuffs, and the enemies are designed so that they need to be debuffed before proper damage can be dealt to them, and must remain debuffed. There are debuffs to reduce armor and decrease resistance and to remove immunities and so forth and so on. What's more, characters can run around with tons of simultaneous buffs, not like in WoW where there are restrictions on how many and what kind of buffs can be active simultaneously.

And then Crowd Controller -- in EQ, and other games with that role, adds are much more powerful and killing enemies often involves pulling entire groups at once, so crowd control is very important. In these games you can root, stun, charm, etc. for a rather long period of time. Crowd Controllers will often use AoE crowd control effects to maintain control over many mobs at the same time, and will also often charm enemies and force them to fight each other.

As neat as the five-role system is, I just don't think it would ever work in WoW. They've already done far too much to consolidate and simplify buffs and debuffs, and generally speaking the community as a whole is not as interested in crowd control as it is in AoE. And unlike other games that use the five-role system, WoW's encounters tend to emphasize complex movement and interactive mechanics. Those types of games tend to be focused around tanking and spanking (and buffing/debuffing, cc, and healing).

More importantly than that, it would require either implementing new specs for several existing classes, or completely changing the way several of the current specs work. Otherwise there would be no way to ensure enough players in those roles.

They wouldn't be able to implement it. The game has changed too much. How would people learn the roles when all the content prior to challenge and hard modes are AoE grindfests where you can't die? Not to mention you can solo classic instances on many classes. If Blizzard is hinting at a new role, i wouldn't get your hopes up. Expect it to fit in with the game design, like a pure AoE role.

There are already enough CC's and support spells in the game anyway, you just don't need to use them and PvP does NOT need anymore (it needs less).

I've designed my own paper and pen RPGs, often as a way to expand upon ideas I wish WoW would do. In addition to the buffer/debuffer and controller, I also like the idea of true hybrids. In that fights are designed in which classes like the druid, would have to switch roles on different phases. Say that one phase required more tanks and another phase required more healers. And in my design, the hybrid is usually the off tank in a 5 man group and it's stats are set up different so that certain mobs are better to use the off tank on than the main tank.

Also, I wonder why Ghostcrawler brought this up? I always thought that the only classes it made sense to add to the game were monks and bards, since they seem different enough from the other classes. Monks got added, I foresee bards in the future.

Also, if they add a buffer/debuffer role into the game, they can retool certain specs to do it. Enhancement could go back to it's original role while a rogue spec could be made into a debuff spec. A warlock spec could also be made into a debuff spec. I also don't think that playing a support class would be avoided as much as tanking or healing, since people won't die as easily or as noticeably when you mess up.

I would love to see new class and I will re-roll immediately. Why? Because it is new. Everything new is interesting. I play monk as main these days and this class is faaaar more interesting and well designed than other classes are.
I see new class as a buffer/controller in one - named support. This guy will be able to stack mobs together, CC them, put buff on tanks, healers, dps when needed. Put debufs on adds or boss. Or put someone in raid into whatever role is needed (can be tank, healer or much better dmg dealer if needed). This class must be essential like tank/healer/dps. You must bring one to raid. Can you imagine raid without tank? I dont. Similar must count for support. Would be hard to balance PvP vs PvE. Support can be successful kitter (like brewmaster monk tortos HC). I am sure this class can exist without nerfing other classes. Would love to play one.

As neat as the five-role system is, I just don't think it would ever work in WoW. They've already done far too much to consolidate and simplify buffs and debuffs, and generally speaking the community as a whole is not as interested in crowd control as it is in AoE. And unlike other games that use the five-role system, WoW's encounters tend to emphasize complex movement and interactive mechanics. Those types of games tend to be focused around tanking and spanking (and buffing/debuffing, cc, and healing).

Not mutually exclusive with CC as a role.

Run out of fire/stand in the fire as a mechanic can only be used so often before players get sick of it. More variety wouldn't hurt.

Not to mention that most range are going back to stationary casting means they will have to cut back on the movement heavy mechanics.

Originally Posted by panterarules

They wouldn't be able to implement it. The game has changed too much. How would people learn the roles when all the content prior to challenge and hard modes are AoE grindfests where you can't die? Not to mention you can solo classic instances on many classes. If Blizzard is hinting at a new role, i wouldn't get your hopes up. Expect it to fit in with the game design, like a pure AoE role.

There are already enough CC's and support spells in the game anyway, you just don't need to use them and PvP does NOT need anymore (it needs less).